ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"Historians call it the ‘Boston Granite Style.’ It must have been the most muscle-bound architecture ever invented in this country. Huge blocks of granite, often left deliberately rough, were piled into massive, fortress-like structures – warehouses, wharves, public works. What was being expressed? Surely the strength, wealth, and durability of Boston’s merchants and sea captains, the people who created the Granite Style in the decades before the...

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"Historians call it the ‘Boston Granite Style.’ It must have been the most muscle-bound architecture ever invented in this country. Huge blocks of granite, often left deliberately rough, were piled into massive, fortress-like structures – warehouses, wharves, public works. What was being expressed? Surely the strength, wealth, and durability of Boston’s merchants and sea captains, the people who created the Granite Style in the decades before the Civil War.

Durable, however, is something the Granite Style seldom proved to be. One of its monuments was the old Beacon Hill Reservoir, which stood near the crown of Beacon Hill. Charles A. Cummings, the designer of the New Old South Church, in Copley Square, called it the best piece of architecture in Boston. Yet the Reservoir survived only 40 years, from 1849 to 1888, when it was torn down- no small feat in itself, surely – to make room for the Annex to the State House.

The old photo shows the Reservoir around 1868, and the new one shows the Annex today. In both views, we’re looking north along Hancock Street. Water was pumped 15 miles, from Natick’s Lake Cochituate, to the top of the Reservoir. This was a huge tub of water lifted high on massive arches as a waiter might lift a tray – but this tray was nearly 16 feet deep and about 200 feet long on each side. No one is quite sure who designed the Reservoir, although an engineer named W. S. Whitwell sometimes gets credit."